Habibi Restaurant

I had bookmarked this place even before I reached Portland. Being top places to eat mediterranean food in that part of town and I can’t go long without mediterranean food.
The place looked diner style so I was glad that after trying food trucks for days It’ll be nice to sit and get some lunch. The place was nice and staff who welcomed me was friendly and prompt. I ordered for Mint Tea and falafel sandwich. The sandwich was a little cold and was too try and lacked flavors. The place is pricey for the food they laid out. Also the floor and toilet i used needed sprucing up. I hope this is not the norm here.

So many great Mediterranean restaurants in town, but Habibi is the one we return to again and again. Just outstanding… everything here is fresh, and the owners are so welcoming. Favorite dishes are the veggie mezza and anything with lamb. Love the location, on one of the prettiest stretches of street in town.

Tonight is the first time I have been to Habibi, and it is wonderful. We had the beef grape leaves for the appetizer and they were very flavorful. And then for dinner I tried the meat combo, which h was chicken, lamb and Kafka. I highly recommend dining here.

I am visiting Portland and needed something to eat for dinner relatively close to my hotel. Decided to give this place a try. In SoCal, we have Open Sesame, which is amazing Lebanese food. I called in my order for pick up. Food was probably a solid 3 stars. Had the 2 beef Kafta plate. Was disappointed that there was only a small dollop of garlic sauce included, which was covered by a sea of rice. Lentil soup wasn’t bad, but I was hoping it was a larger portion for the «Happy Hour» price of 4.25.

/​Win
That’s pretty much enough to sum it up. My wife and I came to Habibi after our intended dinner spot was inundated. We were not disappointed.
Habibi has a niche: they serve Lebanese street vendor food in a diner setting, and it is scrumptious. We had no leftovers, and we’ll be back.

We came for a anniversary dinner and had a wonderful experience. We were both craving Lebanese food and we’re trying to decide between 4 different restaurants. We are glad we chose this one, we had good service excellent food for an affordable price. Thank for a great night!

Happy hour is all day: lentil soup, chicken kebabs, humus, etc. Saffron rice, spinach pizza (more like a puff filled with yummy spinach & pine nuts). Everything we had was amazing

Great décor
Slow service
I went in and ordered an appetizer –lentil soup that was delicious
For my entrée I have their vegan fake meat. When I got it, I wondered why I paid $ 15 for this. should’ve been set at $ 11 or $ 12
Finally I got the creamy pudding with pastachios and coconut and no topping were included. The appetizer and dessert were delicious

Quick but tasty, love the food.
Hot tea with desert was perfect, not from tea bag but real thing

Love it. Great flavor and perfect atmosphere. Lebanese wine was a perfect pair with any choice

AMBIANCE: big space, little bright lights here and there as décor. It is very much middle eastern themed as expected. There is a bar, but I did not order anything from it.
LOCATION: located in downtown Portland. It’s easy to miss as its squeezed in between 2 other businesses.
SERVICE: good, quick, and friendly service.
FOOD: delicious Syrian/​Lebanese cuisine. First time trying, but I am very familiar with other Middle East dishes which were very similar. I got a sampler platter and couldn’t complain as it was a great portion and was able to try a little bit of everything.
PRICING: reasonable! $ 13 – 15 for my platter. Other dishes ranged $ 10−12/dish.

The service is so terrible right now that instead of eating I’m compelled to write this review. I ordered a meat mezze which arrived very lated. I was waiting for my pita bread which comes with the food a good 5 to 7 minutes before I asked for it. Pita bread was not fully cooked when they brought it out and no apology was given for the constant delays and the poor service.
I hope this is not the norm for this place. If so, please train your stuff to be more customer focused.

I love Habibi! I’ve been coming here since I first moved to Oregon 10 years ago.
The food is authentic, fairly prices, and delicious!
The service is always friendly and the atmosphere is relaxed. Family friendly, too.
A must-​visit for all who have a taste for Mediterranean food.

I wanted to give the one star but just because of the tasty food I gave the 2 star the problem was the service and price
Service was bad i ordered a food that came with rice but when they brought the food, It had very small portion of rice first i thought it should be like this but when later i asked them for more rice, i found out they were out of the rice and they didn’t tell me at the first ???
About the price, i should say that base of quality and class of resturant the food is pricy

Plenty of vegan options. The issue is the lack of flavor. Everything needs salt. I asked for hot sauce and they put a bottle of Sriracha on the table.
They are friendly. I will go back and try it again.
I just wish they would take some time and dust EVERYTHING.

Found this listed as a vegan friendly place on Unilocal.It was close to the theatre we were attending, so we thought we’d give it a shot…
The place seemed cute enough albeit a tad dirty (Someone needs to vacuum those stairs)
The bathroom situation was lacking, with only one room for the fairly large establishment.
The food left me wanting salt and spice .
Service was friendly .
Expensive for what you get, portion wise.

I’ve been here once for dinner and once for lunch, and to be honest, I probably won’t come back again. The service is perfectly fine, décor is kinda so so, but the food is never very good. The quality seems a bit low, like the meat is never quite fresh, and the veggies taste like they’ve been in a freezer for too long.

I went there yesterday with my wife and a friend. I ordered the meat combo. It was actually very good and the service was excellent.

We just had an excellent meal here. The food was very very good. I would highly recommend this restaurant. A great deal for the price!

The owner came and sat with us for a little bit and talked. He was funny and it was a great experience. Lots of delicious food and very authentic. My family is part Lebanese and this was right on par with what I expected. Highly recommended!

A good Middle Eastern place that doesn’t try to to pass off a plate of rice with one chunk of chicken as authentic preparation. The menu has all the expected dishes, but doesn’t get too creative. Grape leaves (vegetarian) are fine, but no better than what you can get at Trader Joe’s. Kebabs have more than a hint of cinnemon, and that may not agree with everyone.
May return for take-​out when in the area.

The other reviews have nailed this place pretty well so just gonna put it down for a really nice place to get some Syrian/​Middle Eastern cuisine that’s fresh, well made and competently served. This is one of our usual haunts when in P-​town as much for the food as for the fact that they’ve never charged us a corkage fee for bringing our own wine (check with them in advance, though, I’ve never been able to get a straight answer on what their corkage fee policy is or if they even really have one — which may be why we’ve never been charged one). If you’re not bringing your own wine, they’ve got a small but interesting selection of Lebanese wines, including a nice offering from Châeau Musar. As far as the food goes, start with the mezze platters and you can’t go wrong.

Such great food! Love the service also! Reasonable price and great food! Owner is my favorite. Nice guy.

I felt like having Mediterranean cuisine last night for dinner so I ordered food from Habibi. I am really regretting it. I’ll tell you exactly why my experience deserves a two star rating but I apologize in advance for the long winded explanation; it’s completely necessary.
As I mentioned briefly, my roommate and I ordered food online through Amazon prime now for delivery. It arrived on time so no complaints there.
We ordered the chicken shawarma sandwich and the Habibi mezza. Instead, we received the lamb shawarma sandwich and the Habibi mezza. No big deal. If the sandwich was for myself, I would have ordered the lamb anyways.
My order was the Habibi mezza which consists of kafta, lamb and chicken shawarma, falafel, humus, baba ghannouj, tabouli and grape leaves. My order was missing the lamb/​chicken shawarma, and the baba ghannouj. No big deal. Mistakes happen?
The tabouli was great. I enjoyed everything but the kafta. It thought it was overcooked and dry.
At this point, if my experience had ended here, I would give Habibi a solid 3.6 star rating (if that’s possible). However, the experience isn’t quite over.
Do take note, I’m writing this review at 1:45 AM. I’ve been up for about an hour with cramping and deep pangs of pain within my bowels. I’ve been to the restroom twice now and I’m hating life. I haven’t eaten anything else this evening so I assume the Habibi mezza was the root to my agony. I won’t be ordering from this place again.

Reached late here! Evening dinner and by far the best food we have had! Ranks amongst my must go places in Portland!

Pretty average kebab dishes and hummus, but nothing to write home about. I got a dish with artichokes hoping for something out of the norm. Sadly the artichokes probably came from a can, the chicken shwarma that came with it was not that tender. The flavor was good, and the garlic tomyea was one of the best parts of the meal.

Their full day happy hour menu is a great offering to try out some appetizers for a good price. Falafels were delicious and nicely served with tahini sauce. Mezza platter was a good choice to taste all their meat options.

Honestly, this wasn’t the greatest Mediterranean food that I’ve had. The kabob I had was decent enough but I was not a huge fan of the rice that came with it. I found their lentil soup to be too watery and not that tasty. We were going to eat inside because it was a very humid day but the inside of the restaurant has no air conditioning, which lead us to eating outside at a small table on the sidewalk.
They do make their drinks pretty strong though but I didn’t find my drink to be that fantastic. Meh.

This place is great! The fresh-​made hummus is delicious, although the pita could be a little better (this is part of the reasoning behind the four, rather than five, star rating). On my last visit, I ordered the lamb shawarma, which was perfectly seasoned and delivered to my table piping hot. I also had the rose water — I know it sounds a little wacky, but it’s amazing, and I get it every time I’m in. I highly recommend it!
I dinged a star for slightly small portion sizes and sometimes slow service. However, this is a great experience on the whole, and I wholeheartedly recommend giving Habibi a try.

Had the Habibi mezza plate and I recommend it if you’re eating here! However, I felt like I didn’t get very much food in general and the pita bread was a bit lackluster. This place is a bit pricey for what you get in my eyes (~$ 15) since I’ve had really amazing Mediterranean food before at the same price point. The servers were nice, but kind of leisurely in their duties.

The rice is pretty good, I like the taste and the lamb was okay too. However it’s not the best Lebanese restaurant in Portland area.

Habibi is a solid place to go to for freshly prepared, healthy food. I’d probably only go for the HH. Our meal, with 2 glasses of wine, was $ 30 each, with a hefty tip. (We asked for extra olives & tomatoes & weren’t charged– and these were nice portions.) You can sit on the street and watch passerbys, but be prepared for the noisy IMAX going by every few minutes. Inside is comfortable and airy. (By the way, larger bathroom is by the bar. The other one is TINY.)

Four tables occupied when we arrived around 6:00 pm on a Thursday night. They were cleaning the chandelier and the entire dining room reeked of Windex. We sat outside accordingly. Menus were delivered to the table immediately.
And those menus, well, they’re adorable. With sections like «My Father’s Soups» and «My Sister-in-Law’s Desserts» you get a welcoming family vibe. Legit. Open the front cover; there’s a parental tribute that rivals any sappy Grammy acceptance speech.
So you figure the service would be off the hook. It wasn’t. It easily took 10 minutes before the waitress returned to take our order. We ordered 7 items and two drinks. She didn’t write anything down. Lacking my usual manners, I joked that ours was a lot to remember. She indicated she was a pro and had it all up top.
The drinks arrived and weren’t overly impressive. The Habibi Martini has a crazy blue food coloring added to it making it look like a fruity cocktail. It isn’t. In fact, it’s surprisingly bland, certainly not a refined martini.
The food came out as ready, definitely not a fan of that nonsense. It makes it so hard to mix bites and flavors. As the chicken kabab was placed on the table, the waitress asks, «What did I forget?» Shaking my head there. You said you had it all, you! I mentioned the missing rice and veggie kabab. Which came out about 10 minutes later. Bah! Those are two things you want to eat with the other food, not at the end all by themselves.
To top it off, the flavors weren’t particularly fabulous. Most of the dishes were oiled with a heavy hand and the pita was overly dry. The saving grace was the prices. The all day happy hour menu pricing made it less of a blow to not really enjoy the visit or the food.

My wife and I have found our place! For the last 3 years we looked for a good middle eastern restaurant, this is the best one!
The food is very authentic, exactly like a real Lebanese grandmother will make you! With lots of love.
They did not customize the flavors to the American culture, instead you get a free tour to the most beautiful place of the middle east, the authentic kitchen.
We had the veggitarian mezza, it had it all and we loved especially the ‘baba ganush’ eggplant in the oven (you need to be an artist to know how to make it right, and they did!).
Our waiter Ashraf was only on his 3^rd day on the job, but he was awesome, friendly attentive and gave our doggy some water while we ate our yummy meal. Another thing we loved was the price. Very reasonable. Plus free refill on tea and pita bread. :-)

Good Lebanese food. I was in Portland for a meeting for work and had a craving for Middle Eastern food. I asked my concierge said to check out this place because they have amazing humus. Well that wasn’t all that was great. When we sat down we asked the server what are the best dishes on the menu. He took the menus away and said I will bring it right out. So we were going blind, but that is fun from time to time. This time it worked out. He brought out two plates full of food and it was delicious. One was a lamb dish with rice and a sauce and the other was several different meats (beef kabob, and chicken shawarma), humus, tabouli, and other sides. it was great. Hopefully the photos I post will help explain what it was. Overall it was good and a nice little whole in the wall place for some good Syrian & Lebanese food.

My friend and I just decided to go this place last minute, since it was nearest vegetarian/​vegan-​friendly restaurant that was open late.
The interior design had a cool & modern look. I liked the blue accent lights in the bar area. The place was clean as well.
We ordered the following dishes:
Zattar Pizza — This was made w/​thyme, oregano, sesame seeds, sumac & olive oil. My friend didn’t like this at all. She thought it had an odd taste. And ordered something else instead (sorry I forgot which one).
Pesto Pizza — Who doesn’t like this? It had artichoke hearts, sundried tomatoes, mushrooms, mozzarella & feta cheese. It’s also presented differently than your usual pesto pizza. The flavor was mild, but nevertheless it was good. I guess I got lucky with my order.
Rose Water — Nice & refreshing drink! This wasn’t sweetened which was fine with me.
Customer service was a little bit slow.
Overall, it was just an average experience.

During our self-​guided walking tour, we stopped by for a quick light lunch:
–HH is ALL day, it’s the last page of the menu, we got a $ 2.50 salad
–BEST vegan mezze platter, not over seasoned or oily, wonderful pita
–water comes with a slice of cucumber and tastes like it’s been infusing for awhile
–great quick service, very popular on the drag
$ 13 for two before tip. Amazing. Highly recommend.